Google My Business: Our 4-Step Guide to Setting It Up Right the First Time

Updated 2/2018

Most people don’t search the internet anymore. They Google. It’s become a verb for most of the world’s internet-browsing population.

What about your local business?

Whether your business is online or brick and mortar, you need Google.

Google is the key to online presence for business owners

In today’s digital marketing and advertising economy, Google is the number-one way that your prospects and new customers are going to gather information about your business.

Whether they use it to find out more about your business, find your location, get directions, send you a message, see reviews, or get your phone number; your customers are highly likely to use Google at some point in the sales process.

Here’s an example.

My 7-year-old son receives regular notes home from his teachers about his messy handwriting. My handwriting is nearly as bad, so I’m thankful there are a few local business in El Paso offering tutoring.

Recently I received yet another note from the teacher. My automatic response? I jumped on Google.

Driving down Mesa Street the other day, I noticed a small store in a strip mall offering tutoring. Unfortunately, I couldn’t recall the name of the business. I remembered the location, searched for “tutoring” and then clicked on the Google map results.

Here’s what I found:

Within a few seconds I had the name and phone number for the business I’d seen.

While this business doesn’t yet have a website (I’ll be giving her my card when we head in for our first tutoring sessions), I was able to find all the information I needed to contact Smarty Pants and schedule an appointment.

Playing the Google Game

Many business owners fail to list their business with Google — or if they do, they forget to check back regularly to make sure information is up to date. There are a few reasons why this happens:

You’re too busy

You assume Google will update your info automatically

It doesn’t seem that important

It seems too complicated

Number four is probably the biggest roadblock we see people get stuck on. Google seems to do major “upgrades” and changes every couple of months. In fact, they recently changed their policies about setting up a business.

But good news: this is one of our passions, and we’ve outlined the steps you can take to keep your page up to date.

Making Google Business work for you

Previously, you just went through Google Places to get your business listed. Google is retiring the Places pages, so if you’re only listed with Google Places, it’s time to update your account.

Now, Google has combined the utilities of Places and Google+ to create Google My Business, which serves as a central platform for managing your brand or business.

Google unverifies accounts that have been inactive for six months or more. So even if you don’t have any relevant updates to your business contact info, you still need to log in periodically to keep your listing active.

There are times when dealing with Google begins to feel like being stuck in Groundhog Day. Didn’t I just do this, Google?

If I was the conspiracy theory type, I’d suspect that they make the process difficult just so businesses choose to run Google Ad campaigns. That’s because when you start an ad campaign, Google does some of this work for you. But in the end, the steps it takes to stay current aren’t all that difficult.

4 steps to make the most of Google My Business

What we’re about to walk you through is part of PixelMark’s basic SEO package, so if you’d rather let us take it off your to-do list, just give us a call at 915-227-4667. If you want to give it a try yourself, here’s the lowdown on getting your business properly listed with Google:

1. Start in the right place

2. Don’t Duplicate Your Efforts

The first thing Google will ask you to do is search for your business. Occasionally your business will already be listed with Google. If it is, you want to capture that listing and claim it as your own.

Try searching for your business name as well as your business address. If your business appears, click on it and claim your business. If it doesn’t automatically pop up as an option, click enter. You’ll likely see something like this:

Click the second option and Google walks you through the setup process.

3. Don’t Forget to Verify

One of the final steps in the process is to get your business verified. This step is necessary if you want to control how your business information appears on the Google Search results page.

In most cases, Google will send you a postcard that looks something like this:

Make sure to open that postcard and login to your Google account to verify your listing as soon as you receive the postcard. The code is only good for 30 days!

4. Check Back Often

Since Google is now unverifying inactive accounts, you definitely want to log in to your business profile every few months and make sure all the information is up to date. Go ahead and set a recurring date on your calendar so you don’t let too much time go by. We recommend reviewing your page at least once a quarter.

What’s the benefit?

Customizing your business profile:

Gives you control over what people see about your business

Allows you to maintain brand consistency

Improves the search engine ranking of your associated website

If you run into problems, give us a call. Or, you can also try Google phone support. Greg Gifford over at Search Engine Land provides a great step-by-step on how to get help with your business.

Here’s one of the best tips Greg offers:

Top Secret GMB Phone Support Pro Tip #2

GMB Phone Support can help with almost anything related to your Google My Business listing. While you’re on the phone with a support agent, ask them if there are any duplicate listings. If any exist, they’ll be able to shut them down immediately. If you’re working with a business that set up a personal Google+ page for their business, Phone Support can help you get it converted to a GMB listing.

Don’t worry if you still don’t show up at the top

Though there’s no guaranteed way to get your website to the top of the Google search results (aside from paying for Google Adwords), registering your business listing is one of the key steps to building your website’s authority and getting your site ranked in Google’s search engine.

If you want to learn more about whether an AdWords campaign is a good idea for your business, or you want to build your online presence, drop us a line!

Click here or give us a call at (915) 585-1919 to set up your free 2-hour consultation.

Reader Interactions

Comments

I had no idea that Google was the top leading search engine on the internet. Google has over 92% of people using them for their main mobile search engine. I personally like Bing and rarely use Google when I search something on my computer or mobile device. Many companies and brands benefit from having new customers Google specific key words. If you don’t have your website on Google you are missing a key audience of new potential customers. Having your website ranked in the top Google search engine is great success and people will want to buy from you.

This article was great to read especially if you don’t have a website on Google for you company. I thought nothing was left out and found out a lot of new information I never knew about Google. The internet is so powerful and can help jump start new companies like never before.

One question I do have is when you have a website on Google will it be available in other search engines like Bing, or Yahoo?

Having a business is not hard. Maintaining the business going the right way and your audience happy is. It is true that we live in a society where everything is around the internet, which makes it easier for a business to reach a specific audience. In these days, if we do not know how to get to a place, we will just google it and it will magically appear in our phone with directions and everything. One thing I did not know about this topic was that there are so many ways to add your business to Google (Google Places, Google+, Google My Business, and Google Brands). I found interesting how this article explains you step for step how to add your business to Google Business. However, a thing that I would add is how the non-local brand pages benefit from Google My Business.
My question would have to be “does it affect Google My Business the fact that you already have a Google Brands account or is it a totally different thing or does it make it easier for business to make an create a Google My Business account?”

[…] Search for the name that people know you for and also for any variations of your business’s name, including common misspellings. Set up alerts for your business on Google, Facebook, and any other social media profiles where your clients are active. Claim and optimize your Google My Business page using our step-by-step guide. […]